changes proposed by then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt didn’t sit well with the established industry leaders. “Bruce Babbitt’s idea was to replace


the gross receipts tax, essentially a sales tax on all our revenue, with a weight-distance tax,” recalled Berry. “His thinking was that we have all these trucks crossing the state, so we could export the tax to all the trucks travelling across the state. With that mileage tax, Arizona would win big-time and pay for a ton of roads by taxing all these out-of-state truckers. That was the theory.” What a disaster, deregulation coupled


Moyes presides at the 1986 AMTA Convention.


needs of the industry. Swift started using Qualcomm for communications instead of waiting for drivers to find a pay phone; they switched from cab-over tractors to conventionals and from dispatch cards to a computerized system. Few things, though, had as much impact as the day a guy walked in the door with a new engine to sell Swift. “In 1986, Roger Penske had just


purchased Detroit Diesel from General Motors. Their market share had fallen to 5 percent. They had an engine called the Series 60 on the shelf, but they couldn’t sell it because of their poor reputation,” said Moyes. “Roger walked into our office one day with Jim Hebe—he was a salesman for Freightliner—and Roger says, ‘I’ll guarantee you these engines will run 500,000 miles and you’ll get one mile to the gallon better fuel economy.’ We were getting five and thought we were doing great at five. “Roger went rolling out the door and


I said to Bill Riley, my CFO at the time, ‘Did we just buy some new engines?’’’ They had, and what great engines they


turned out to be! “If it was not for Roger Penske’s


jamming it down our throat, his charisma, that engine would still be sitting on the shelf,” Moyes said. “It delivered, plus. It changed the whole industry.” The political and regulatory


environment in the state was changing, too, during the 80s. Arizona had actually deregulated trucking just ahead of the federal government, and some of the


32


with the weight distance tax almost crushed the Arizona trucking industry. The reality was in the wake of weight-distance taxes being implemented in several states, other states took umbrage. Oklahoma, for instance, passed new taxes to charge trucks with Arizona plates the same rates Oklahoma trucks encountered in Arizona. “That really started scrambling things


up, these retaliatory taxes,” said Berry. Berry, who served as president of the


ATA in 1982, says that deregulation also posed problems for the ATA itself. A number of members left because they didn’t get what they wanted out of the new laws, and the association found itself facing some financial hard times. “To make it through the night, we had


to sell the property behind our building [on McDowell Road],” he said. “That kept us going.” The growing pains after deregulation


were often harsh, but there were some improvements during that time, too. And one of the most important was the expansion of the interstate highway system. “Do you remember how excited we got


every time the freeway [I-10] got closer to Phoenix, and we didn’t have to go through Wickenburg to get to L.A.?” asked Berry. “Despite what you hear about our


roads and how bad they are,” said Moyes, “these freeway systems made a huge difference for us. Unbelievable. Eisenhower did a great job when he came back, but it took him 50 years to do it.” Better and longer lasting tires and


engines, better fuel economy, and cleaner emissions are all areas where the industry has made huge progress since 1987, noted Moyes. But there are also plenty of new issues coming down the pipe that the


Moyes cuts the ribbon for the inaugural 1987 Truck Show.


industry will have to face, he said. “I think the last year or two, and going


forward, the regulatory industry has changed dramatically,” said Moyes. “From our hours of service to the CSA to what is going to be next. “ “We’re just going to come under


additional government regulations – look at the EPA and safety. Also, look at how clean these trucks are today compared to 1994,” he said. “I jokingly say that California hires us to put a bunch of trucks over there and just idle them, because the air coming into the engine is much dirtier than what comes out.”


As new issues come up in the industry,


Moyes said, various carriers take the lead so that other companies can benefit from their findings. For instance, Schneider did a lot of research into sleep apnea, and J.B. Hunt into drug screening using hair. For its part, Swift is testing out engines that run on natural gas, which promise even cleaner emissions but haven’t overcome their main drawbacks yet, cost and power. Swift is testing both straight natural gas motors and those that use a blend of natural gas and diesel. The


Arizona Trucking Association 2012 Yearbook


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